


A Little Like Always

by GoldenTruth813



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Established Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 02:45:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14463312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenTruth813/pseuds/GoldenTruth813
Summary: Ron's always been the most important thing to Harry and he always will be.





	A Little Like Always

**Author's Note:**

  * For [agentmoppet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentmoppet/gifts).



> This is for Ellen who I completely adore and saisl on the tiny Harry/Ron ship with me <3 Happy Birthday!
> 
> Thank you aibidil for the beta!

“Well, the bloody  _ Prophet _ is at it again,” Harry mutters, eyes turned down on the copy in his hands, and he meanders into the kitchen of the small flat he and Ron share. It’s not even half past six so Harry doesn’t expect an actual answer. As predicted, Ron grunts, sliding a mug of perfectly sweetened tea across the table at him.

Harry’s lips quirk up into a smile as he sets the paper down and accepts the tea gratefully, lifting it to his lips and blowing on it as he watches Ron.

Ron’s shoulders are hunched, his eyes half shut and his large hands wrapped protectively around his mug of tea as if someone else might take it. He yawns, suddenly noticing Harry watching and letting out a huff of amusement as his cheeks flush red, making the broad expanse of freckles across the bridge of his nose stand out.

Harry’s not entirely sure how it happened, sheer need perhaps, but after they’d left their eighth year at Hogwarts and moved in together, he’d become a morning person. At first it’d been a consequence of his insomnia that had Harry up all night, and therefore able to watch the sunrise daily. But as the months went on and the pain lessened and Harry finally started to sleep, he discovered he rather missed the quiet early mornings. He liked waking before the sun, greeting it as a friend as he started a new day.

Ron, on the other hand, abhorred the mornings. It still made Harry laugh to watch, because in those sleepy morning moments Ron was twenty going on eleven. He still got that same glazed look in his eyes when he was sleepy, that same grumpy tightness in his jaw and the same heaviness in his voice. It filled Harry with so much affection he thought he might drown.

Hermione had given them grief when they picked this flat just two months out of Hogwarts, both of them desperate for their own place. It was poky and small and Harry could afford more, they both deserved more, she kept insisting. Ron had just shrugged his shoulders and said it was all they needed. Hermione didn’t question it after that, seeming to understand more than Ron was saying. It’d been months since her relationship with Ron had ended and Harry sometimes thought they were closer now than they had been before. Harry’d been jealous of that, of them. It’d been hard to watch them together when they’d returned to Hogwarts, terrified he was being left out of something and ashamed and confused at his inability to be happy for them.

Of course as the months went on, Harry figured out pretty quickly that he wasn’t jealous of them, he’d been jealous of  _ Hermione _ . 

Harry wasn’t used to Ron’s attention being focused on someone else like that, or his smiles and his warmth going somewhere else. All of Ron’s free time was spent with Hermione, and while they both insisted Harry was always welcome with them, the words didn’t seem to match the reality of the situation. Harry knew it was more him than them, but he found it pretty hard to sit by the fire and watch them kiss once he’d realized how much he wanted to be the one kissing Ron. Of course, Harry was quite content to take that knowledge to his grave. It didn’t matter what he wanted for himself, because he loved his friends and wanted them to be happy even if it wasn’t going to include him. 

He’d not meant to isolate himself, but it was hard not to feel ashamed of wanting things he so clearly couldn’t have. Things had gotten messy after that, when Hermione and Ron had broken up out of nowhere just weeks before leaving Hogwarts. They both insisted it was for the best, that it was mutual. But the way Hermione kept looking at Harry when she thought he didn’t see made Harry burn with shame and guilt as if he’d somehow tainted his friends’ relationship. Worse still was that Harry felt sure Ron must know from the awkward way he avoided Harry, slinking in and out of the room and blushing every time Harry looked at him.

Things reached a head when, on their last day at Hogwarts, Hermione hugged him tightly and whispered, “We’re all who we’re meant to be, Harry. It’s okay. I love you both. Go talk to him.  _ Please _ .”

Harry’d been terribly confused and had no desire to face the reality of the ways his ridiculous desires had ruined everything. But he’d promised Hermione and Harry never broke a promise, so it was with trepidation Harry made his way out of the castle to find Ron lying in the middle of the Quidditch Pitch watching the clouds.

Harry had stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of him, his chest aching with want at the sight of Ron sprawled out in the sun, all long limbs and a lazy smile. Ron was everything Harry had ever wanted. Everything Harry had never thought he could have. 

Harry flopped on the grass beside him, unable to give voice to the thoughts swirling through his brain. Luckily, as with most things with Ron over the years, resolution came fairly easy. One moment they were awkward and the next moment they weren't. And as they lay there in the sun, the tips of Ron’s fingertips pressing into the pulse point of Harry’s wrist, Harry felt like maybe he wasn’t leaving everything behind when they left tomorrow, maybe he was going to find it all, instead.

Later, looking back, Harry wouldn’t even be able to pinpoint when things had changed. They’d left Hogwarts and gone straight to the Burrow before getting their own flat, the weeks passing by with chores and job applications and the stark reality of becoming an adult. But in the quiet moments at night, while Harry slept on the pull-out bed on the floor, things around him seemed to be shifting. Until one day, without question, he didn’t climb into his makeshift bed, he climbed into Ron’s. They didn’t do anything that night or the next, but it wasn’t long before just sleeping became a bit of kissing and a bit of kissing became  _ fuck, you have too many clothes on _ .

Which is how, two months after leaving Hogwarts, they’d ended up signing the lease on their own flat. After that, things had progressed pretty rapidly from  _ “This might be something” _ to  _ “This is everything.” _

It turned out that Harry’s worries that everything would change were ill founded. Things were remarkably the same. They still ate takeaway on the sofa in their too-worn pants and Ron still ate all the biscuits without remembering to add them to the shopping list and Harry still sometimes got in a strop for no good reason. Except there was a lot more kissing, and touching, and sex—fuck, Harry liked that bit—but there was also a quiet understanding that wasn’t there before. There was the way Ron would rest his chin on Harry’s head and wrap his arms around him when he was in a bad mood, and instead of fighting the embrace, Harry welcomed it. 

And then there were times like now, as Harry blew the steam off his tea and watched Ron eat his fourth crumpet, a glob of butter stuck to the corner of his mouth, that left Harry feeling overwhelmed. Sometimes it wasn’t the big moments when they confessed their feelings, or the intimate moments when they were as close as two people could physically be. Sometimes it was the just the quiet moments in the morning when Harry was reminded that Ron wasn’t just his lover, he was his best friend. That they got to share all the good and bad moments and the boring ones in between. 

“You’re staring again,” Ron supplies, his mouth full and the dimple in his left cheek showing. He sounds amused. “I realise I’m breathtaking, mate, but you should probably shower.”

Harry blows out a breath, his laughter easy. “I was thinking maybe we could shower together.”

Ron looks thoughtful, swallowing his last bite and licking the strawberry jam from his bottom lip. “We’ll be late. Robards already threatened to write us up if we were late one more time. I believe his exact words were ‘Don’t you dare be late again, boys’.” Ron doesn’t look concerned, though. If anything he looks excited.

Harry glances at the clock on the wall and grins. “We’ve got twelve minutes, Weasley. I do believe we’ve got a record to break.”

“You’re on,” Ron says seriously then throws his head back and laughs, pushing away from the table and racing down the hallway, with Harry hot on his tail. Ron’s legs might be longer than Harry’s, but Harry’s always been quicker.

They make it to the bathroom at almost the same time, all arms and legs and laughter mingling with whimpers and as Harry presses Ron back into the stream of warm water, watching the rivulets cascade down his neck and across his broad shoulders, Harry thinks—this, this is exactly what he’s always wanted. Everything he’s ever fought for and against has somehow culminated in this moment of Harry living a completely normal, ordinary life with Ron. 

  
A life he knew they were going to spend together.  _ Forever _ .

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://goldentruth813.tumblr.com/) <3


End file.
